


from the eyes of babes (from the mouths of rockers)

by batzbatzbatz



Category: Desolation Row - My Chemical Romance (Music Video), My Chemical Romance
Genre: (kind of), (mentioned) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Desolation Row, Alternate Universe - Punk, American Politics, Gen, Police Brutality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 05:04:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17995397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batzbatzbatz/pseuds/batzbatzbatz
Summary: an alternate history of how MCR came to be and how they influenced the disenfranchised, told from both the perspective of politically-charged fans and the memories of the members.





	from the eyes of babes (from the mouths of rockers)

**Author's Note:**

> 1) stage frerard is mentioned very briefly so, like, if that rustles your jimmies, get your jimmies outta here before you read that part.  
> 2) there's a very passing mention of child abuse? it's like, not even in it's own sentence i don't think, but, yknow!!  
> 3) this is kinda sucky but it's 2:30 in the morning and i'm not going to ever bother fixing it up, so i figure i should just show it off anyway.

**March 16, 1994**

_Gerard is eighteen when they make music illegal. It makes international news- it breaks headlines in languages he can’t ever hope to speak._

_Gerard tells Mikey as soon as he sees him, while they’re riding the bus home from school. Mikey stares at him, slack-jawed and horrified, and of course he does- Gerard loves music, but Mikey’s always going on about making it. It’s not the same thing._

_When they get home, their mom is still at work at the salon, and their dad’s out, probably at work, too. They shove the CD player in the very back of their closet, their CDs under their mattresses, and, after a few botched attempts, figure out how to make pockets inside of hoodies, to thread headphones through and listen to them. All the while, Gerard’s body is shaking from fear and thrumming from energy. He’s never felt this before. He wants to vanish but more than that, he wants to spit in somebody’s face, like his favorite singers and all the cool guitarists he wishes he could be._

_The cops show up, in full uniform with their firearms on them in full view of the crowd, to school every Friday for two months. They warn the teenagers about what music does to people: how it makes people reckless, impulsive, too individualistic or stubborn. It’s illegal for the same reason the Prohibition happened, they say in a stern, threatening monotone, and when someone calls out, “the Prohibition ended”, the man in charge has two officers drag him out of the auditorium._

_“Just to give him a talking to,” he assures them all. He has everyone’s attention now; no teachers protested when the kid got taken out, but they look afraid now- so do some of the kids, but Gerard can see Mikey’s set jaw and the way his eyes are staring straight ahead in an attempt to burn holes into the wall he’s glowering at, and he knows his brother isn’t the only one. Gerard guesses he’s in league with the kids who want to get dragged out, too._

_They burn CDs, CD players, Walkmans, records, and band shirts in bonfires every Sunday night. The same people who still go to the church Gerard’s parents used to take him and Mikey to, are the ones who go and cheer them on. They get warrants for the houses of students with histories of authority problems. They get enough information from the junkies locked up after they get busted that they find lots of rockers. They throw them in jail, because Gerard’s noticed that all music may be outlawed, but they’re really gunning for the rock kids._

_Gerard starts drawing new things. He draws the cops getting beaten up, and he draws the cops ganging up on poor fuckers, black fuckers, music-lover fuckers, gay fuckers, and he draws guns and knives, and he draws guitars and basses and drums, and he draws David Bowie marching into Congress in full simultaneous Ziggy get-up and drag. He draws a lot of new things and when Mikey brings home CDs bought from the same losers selling hydrocodone in the bathroom, he starts listening to new things, too._

_Everything’s changing. More and more, Gerard’s wanting to scream, “Fuck you!” and spit in someone’s face. It’s bubbling up. He doesn’t know for sure that he can hide it forever- he doesn’t know that he wants to, either._

 

 

**April 23, 2005**

They’re on the morning news again. _Again._ He’s so lucky he didn’t get busted, but he knows one day there won’t be a back door to squirrel his way out of or a disused basement to hide in. The riot squads will see him and there will be tear gas in his eyes, cuffs on his wrists pressing into his back. The idea doesn’t terrify him like he knows it should- instead it just excites him. It’s not a rite of passage or something to get arrested at a show, but it makes everything real, just like the music. It would make everything in his life _real_.

His mom will kill him, then, though. Skin him alive mid-heart attack and mount his head on the wall as a reminder to not do it again. That terrifies him a little and as she hands him a plate of eggs and bacon- the canned stuff, of course; eggs a month or so out of date and the kind of bacon that sloughs out of a can like everything else does when you’re poor enough to go to shows without feeling like a poser- when he enters the kitchen, he feels like the elephant in the tiny room.

The band’s second-most recent logo pops up in a square in the corner of the battered TV’s screen. “…And last night, local rockers and outlaws _My Chemical Romance_ ,” the newscaster says, moving his mouth with distaste as he pronounces the name slowly, “were arrested _again_ for inciting a riot with their music and lewd onstage behavior. Diane?”

Diane, the co-anchor, makes the face she always does before going into a tangent that she’s reading off the que-card-things. “My Chemical Romance- also known as My Chem, and MCR- are a popular local rock band that have been seeping into the minds of our teenagers for almost two years now. Their band name is a reference to drug addiction. In fact, since their spike in popularity with their illegal CD, put out last summer, the number of arrests for drug possession in minors has risen by almost ten percent-”

 _Bullshit. They don’t know what they’re talking about,_ he thinks to himself. He’s only fifteen. He’s got three more years to serve in normalcy before he can run out to the warehouses and the gen-you-ine bad lands downtown of Desolation Row, where all the cool rockers and dedicated antiestablishment types stay. In the back of his head, he hears the nagging voice saying to run now, go now.

"As well as encouraging noncompliance with laws, in school, at home, and out in the world. Onstage, their singer- Gerard Way- often engages in vulgar acts with one of their guitarists, Frank Lero-”

 _Iero. His name is Iero and he’s brilliant, don’t they see that in the way he moves? Vulgar, my ass. They kiss, they rub up against each other. **Vulgar**_ , he thinks angrily. _Fucking homophobes._

“-Or willing audience members. Other guitarist Ray Toro has been known to jump into the crowd and be carried throughout it by the crowd-”

_Not for long. What, do you think the cords to the amp just stretch for infinity? What’s wrong with crowd-surfing, anyway? The time my hand almost touched Toro’s hair was the best of my life._

“-And singer Gerard Way has also been known to go on tangents in between songs, encouraging noncompliance-”

_Didn’t you mention that already? Or do you really have to drive it home, that they’re telling us to not dress in gray school uniforms and read and think whatever we want?_

“-and mentioning other bands for the audience to listen to, and speaking about suicide.”

_Speaking about? Have you heard him? He makes it into a joke, a great joke, one so funny you shouldn’t even try it. Suicide’s lame because it’s not hardcore. That’s bullshit but at least his bullshit is helpful._

“Eat your eggs. Stop starin’ at the TV or I’ll turn it off,” his mother threatens. She’s eating cereal at the speed of a tortoise and reading a magazine.

He stares down at his scrambled eggs. They’re overcooked. The tap water is a shade closer to gray than it is to clear.

Yeah. Yeah, he’s done, isn’t he? It’s time to go.

 

 

**March 16, 1994**

_Ray is home sick the day it happens. His younger brother comes home from school and races through the house at break-neck speeds to come and tell him:_

_Music is illegal._

_The Toros are good kids; they don’t get in trouble at school or with their parents. They worship Bruce Dickinson and Brian May rather than the Virgin Mary and they keep quiet. In their crowded little house, they’ve been raised well: violence is impractical and a last resort; family is more important than anything else; doing what you believe in is worth more than anything else._

_Ray is a pacifist (thus far, in life). He’s not going to go to DC and punch out Congressmen left and right- even if he weren’t so sick he can’t speak clearly._

_He gestures for his guitar. With an impish grin, his brother complies._

 

 

**January 9, 2007**

“If you’re gonna be a thief, steal from people who don’t need what you’re takin’. Dye your hair bright fuckin’ yellow but make sure you carry a beanie with you. Be careful, kiddo.”

That’s what she’s been hearing for as long as can she remember. Anytime it was at all relevant, her dad nodded to himself and recited her personal code for her daughter. These days, he says it most every day. Her dad would be proud, since she tells it to herself now, too.

Her hair actually is bright yellow these days. It’s a bitch to re-dye it so often, but she doesn’t mind. Even if her dad had never used that particular example, the deal was definitely sealed on her hair color when Gerard Way told her it looked cool on her.

The city is a mess. One of her professors- Hawkins, history of pop culture- says it was like this when he was in college- totally wild and unrestrained, the raging youth and lawbreaking law enforcement. When he said that, he shook his head and said it was bullshit that the world hasn’t changed since then, but something in the way he said it makes her wonder, when she thinks about it, if he doesn’t envy them for being young with something to be angry about.

“Today we’re going to be talking about-” Hawkins looks at faces throughout the auditorium conspiratorially before ending his sentence in a whisper. “- _music._ ” He waits for the statement to sink in before he continues. “Now, since the beginning of rock ‘n’ roll, in the 1950s…”

She pays attention, but she’s still thumping her foot in time with the beat of a shitty bootleg set from last year of MCR. Rock ‘n’ roll. Damn right, and fuck the rest, she thinks.

“…and, currently, at the forefront of music- the illegal forefront- are several different bands. Mostly, even with the Internet, right now we’re all stuck listening to local bands, since selling copies of records is illegal.” Hawkins pauses. “That being said, if you want My Chem’s album,” he says, catching the attention of a few half-awake kids with falling-down spikes in their hair, “I know someone you can talk to about it.”

Hawkins’ lectures are probably the best part of her weeks, other than sneaking into the library to print out homemade band posters to sell. Not that she pockets all the money, because she wants her favorite musicians and their managers to keep eating enough to keep playing shows; she emails them about it and sometimes meets up with them to give them half the cash (the most memorable time was when Gerard fucking Way showed up, and then said she looked like she could use a drink, if she wanted one).

It’s hard to keep a positive outlook when the news is full of shitheads blabbing about police brutality and senile politicians and the dangers of rebellious rock music, and how it’s corrupting the youth.

Maybe rock is corrupting the youth.

If it is, corruption is pretty sweet.

 

 

**November 9, 1994**

_Frank is thirteen the first time he’s arrested. He’s still not quite grounded to the earth as anyone else knows it, so he enjoys it as much as he’s been enjoying everything else this evening._

_They took away his friend’s CDs, but they didn’t take his- he hid them. And they didn’t take his guitar, or anybody else’s instruments. That had been their mistake: like Frank was going to let a stupid law get in the way of everything he’d found in the past two years, everything he’d realized made life worth living._

_They were just practicing, is the thing, but they weren’t trying to be quiet. They never do. They practice with their amps’ volumes turned to ten and Frank never tries to keep his whiny, cracking voice down, in his best friend’s garage. Every time for six months, they got away with it- they’d get disapproving looks from their parents when they learned their kids weren’t trying to keep it down, but nothing more._

_In hindsight, years later, if he’s drunk enough, Frank might admit that added hubris led to a lot of bigger problems later._

_The cops bust down the fucking front door, because there are no adults home and the guys just don’t hear them. Maybe if they had, they would’ve only gotten louder- Frank, at least, probably would have. The four, all up in their black uniforms, swarm in the garage._

_At first, everyone freezes._

_And then Frank shouts, “Fuck the police!” because they all believe it and no one's saying anything yet. And cops are getting smacked at with drumsticks and are shielding their eyes from guitar and bass picks. There’s a split second there where Frank feels rejuvenated, and he’s young enough to think the adrenaline rush means he’s going to win. After that split second is over, his left hand- his chord hand- is hanging limply from his wrist, twisted out of place and probably broken. He stares at it in the midst of the fray and then in all of his eighty-six pound glory, tackles the uniform that broke his wrist._

_Frank and Shaun and the rest are pinned down on the cracked concrete floor of the dimly lit garage. In the back of his head, he knows this is it, this is the end of his life: he’s poor and he was just caught shrieking and whining his cracking puberty voice into a microphone with a guitar in his hands and he’s_ fighting back _. It won’t be the first time some idiot- the exact kind of idiot that Frank is- gets a bullet between the eyes for it._

_But it doesn’t go down like that- later, he’ll realize that’s because he’s white, and he doesn’t have the word ‘bisexual’ tattooed on his forehead. Instead, there’s cool metal around his wrists as his face is pressed down into the dirty floor. The cop picks him up roughly and Frank scrabbles futilely in his grasp as they’re escorted through the dingy house and out to the cop car parked recklessly in the dead grass of the front yard._

_"Fuck you! All cops are bastards!” He can’t think of any more buzzword phrases so he just repeats what he already knows, but he’s grinning like crazy the whole time; it’s not any kind of initiation to get arrested, but it feels like it is, and it feels cool. Frank feels cool._

 

 

**May 27, 2008**

Ever since America banned music, there have been movements nearly everywhere else pushing for similar measures. England is no exception.

“All I’m saying, honey, is that maybe they aren’t wrong,” his father says downstairs. He lowers his voice- like that’ll stop the _juvenile delinquent_ hiding just beside the stairs from hearing the argument.

“The music makes him happy, David. What’s so wrong about that?” His mother’s taking his side. That’s rare but it’s probably only to piss off his father; it’s okay, being a pawn, when it might work in his favor.

England doesn’t have places carved out of metro areas, like most cities in America, full of holed-up Cheshire cats going nowhere and bright-eyed bastards with instruments. He’s considered moving as soon as he’s got the money, but he’s not quite as stupid as Sid Vicious, maybe- he can make a real difference somewhere where the music’s still allowed on the airwaves. A real difference, like all the really cool Americans talk about, like the ones in My Chemical Romance.

“What’s wrong with it? Have you seen our son? He knocked someone’s tooth out at school yesterday-”

_That fucker had it coming and he knew it. Creeping on the girls and pushing around the freshmen. You think the teachers were gonna take him down, Dad?_

“-and when I came home from my business trip last week, he was smoking marijuana in his room with that transfer student kid James!”

_James showed me the noise. I already knew the rest._

“According to him, that boy had it coming! And as for James, you aren’t telling me you’re going to tell him he can’t speak to his only friend…”

He zones out at that part. It’s getting boring.

Speaking of James, his friend is probably home. James is always interested in getting high and rocking out.

He slides his headphones over his head and starts the treacherous process of climbing out of his window. He can still hear his parents fighting, so he turns up the volume on his Discman- Ray Toro and Frank Iero are going to drown them and the rest of the idiots in the world out if he has to go deaf to make them do it. The world won’t work for him.

But the noise pounding into his eardrums has been teaching him that he doesn’t have to work for the world, either.

 

 

**September 14, 1994**

_Mikey is young, stupid, scrawny, and mean. It’s a bad combination and while it hasn’t gotten him into a fistfight yet, it’s about to._

_But, anyway, it’s Henry Kissinger’s fault for coming out to make a public speech. Mikey’s just waving a sign with some sharp words on it._

_“He’s a fucking war criminal!” Mikey shouts at the skinhead getting in his face. He throws his sign down and balls his fists. He’ll get his ass kicked; if this guy has a gun on him, he’ll get worse. It doesn’t matter. He knows what he’s doing, even if he knows it’s not smart._

_The guy shouts something back. Mikey can feel his foul breath and it fogs up his glasses._

_It goes badly, to say the least, but the neo-Nazi doesn’t steal Mikey’s cellphone. He calls Gerard after limping and bleeding his way to a coffee shop; Gerard takes him back to his dorm and filches a bag of frozen peas from the communal freezer for his jaw._

_"We have to do something,” Mikey says later, after they’ve watched Romano movies to calm down. He can still feel fire thrumming through his veins. “We’re going to do something.”_

_Gerard takes Mikey’s glasses off his face and sets them down on his nightstand; it goes unspoken that he’ll spend the night to recover so that their dad won’t make Mikey’s injuries any worse. They’ll phone their mom later._

_"Like when we saw the Smashing Pumpkins last year,” Mikey continues. “It’s like that. We have to do something.”_

_Something that smells terribly like fate sinks into his bones as Gerard says, “Yeah. We need to figure it out.”_

_It clicks into place like a key in a lock. Mikey’s stomach twists and he feels lighter._

 

 

**February 20, 2011**

“You have to help,” she hisses at him once trigonometry class is over. “You’re one of the only people I know who has a job.”

He nearly winces at her persistence. “You know I can’t,” he mumbles back as they move through the crowded hall. “If I get caught-”

“Fuck getting caught!” She whisper-shouts with a passion in her eyes that burns through his throat like acid. “The bail’s at four hundred bucks, for each of them. You know they raise it every day. The mass-email said they only have one-eighty.” She softens her voice and her gaze. “Look… if you don’t help spring ‘em, I can’t take you to their gig next Friday night,” she coaxes.

He shifts the weight of his backpack on his shoulder and bites his lip. “Okay.”

A beat of silence.

“But fuck capitalism, too,” he adds.

She grins. “It’s like you’ve listened to every word they’ve ever said a million times,” she teases, because he has; they both have.

Really, they all have.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!! ^u^ don't feel afraid to comment, give kudos, et cetera :)


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